Life-raft.



B. E. MATSON.

LIFE RAFT. APPLICATION PI'LED AUG. 7, 1912.

1,049,250, Patented Dec. 31, 1912.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

' WITNESSES mmvron j Berfhefl/Ya fson.

By W a ATTORNEYS B. B. MATSON.

LIFE RAFT. APPLICATION FILED AUG. 7, 1912.

1,0%9,25G I I Patented De0.31, 1912.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

WSSES MTORMEVS B EBTHE FMEI IE HATSON, OF IBQSTON', MASSACHUSETTS.

- LIFE-RAFT.

Specification of Letters Patent.

- Patented Dec. 31, 1912.

Application filed August 7, 1912. Serial H0.'713,736.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Bnn'rnn E. MATSON,

a citizen of theRe ublic of France, and a resident of Boston, in thecounty of Sufi'olk and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new andImproved Life-Raft, of which the following is a full, clear, and exactdescription.

This invention relates to life rafts car- I@ ried by marine vessels, andhas reference more particularly to a device of that class which isformed by a "plurality of buoyant members, and airtight and food tankscrated in said buoyant members, all forming the it raftn An object ofthe invention is to provide a life raft, safe, simple and rigid inconstruction, and equally efficient when being launched either side up.

Another object of the invention is to provide a life'raft formed by aplurality of buoyant members inclosing a plurality of.

air and food compartments evenly spaced and crated by the buoyantmembers, and in consequence guaranteed from injury by the buoyantmembers.

The invention consists of the construction.

and novel combination of parts to be more fully described hereinafterand particularly is represented in the accompanying drawings forming apart of this specification, in

which similar characters of reference indicate corresponding parts inall the views.

Figure 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of my invention, withparts aofthe frame or; crate cu t.away,,showing the. food tank; Fig. 2is a plan of the same; Fig. 3 is a longitudinal section on the line 3-3of Fig. 2; 4 isa transverse section on the line 4- 1 of Fig. 2; and Fig.5 is a vertical section through. the food tank.

Before proceeding to a more detailed description of my invention, it isto be understood that the shape of the raft, its relative size, and theshape of the air and food tanks, may be varied in accordance withspecial conditions and special requirements, Without it departing fromthe underlying spirit of the invention.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, are longitudinal buoyantrunners formed at the lower part of the raft, and

65 by means of which., -the raft is launched from the deck of a shipinto the water. Normally the runners and at each end of them ahorlzontal transverse grating 11 is formed by a series of transversebuoyant bars 12, similar bars being placed midway between and parallelto the grates 11 to remforce the middle of the runners. Directly on thetransverse grating and supported by it are at each end longitudinalgratings 13 formed by a series of longitudinal buoyant barsparallel tothe runners. Two of the longitudinal bars 14 formed at the ends of eachof the longitudinal grates are of the same length as the runners of theraft, while the mner longitudinal buoyant bars 15 'forming the samelongitudinal grate only run between the first transverse bars 11 formingthe transverse grate and over the transverse bars 11. Supported by thislongitudinal series of buoyant bars 1s a series of transverse buoyantbars 12 parallel and in vertical alinement with the transverse bars 12forming the ends of the transverse grating 11 and the middle transversebar 12 lying in another series of longitudinal bars 14 paral- 'lel toand in vertical alinement with the longitudinal bars forming the ends ofthe '85 longitudinal grates 13 and between the two inner of saidlongitudinal bars a series of longitudinal buoyant bars 15 extendbetween the samepoints as the above stated bars 15 and form a gratedfloor 16, thepurpose of which will appear later. i

, The transverse longitudinal series following the above describedseries forming the fio'or are similar in every respect to the two belowit as described, and in consequence of this structure, as can be seenfrom the drawing-s, a series of housings is formed at the end borders ofthe raft. In the four corner housings 17 vertical airtight tanksareplaced,

two of said tanks'18 diagonally opposite being for food, and the othertwo tanks 19 similarly opposite being for air. In the other horizontalhousings 20 formed between the said vertical housings, tanks 21 areplaced. Asit can be seen from the drawings, the vertical tanks as wellas the transversely placed tanks are resting upon the transverse grates11, while the lon tudinally placed tanks rest on the longitu inal grates13and in consequence 'of adifier- 11o a to the impulse received it wouldfall into the,

ent level than the, transverse horizontal tanks; the purpose of thiswill be explalned later.

Directly over the transverse horizontal tanks and. on the last mentionedlongitudinal series of buoyant bars, another transverseseries of buoyantbars is placed as the one last mentioned with the exception that aplurality of bars 22 is,placed,between the pieces at the end of thoseforming a grate and over the horizontal transversely placed tanks andclearing the corners for the projecting vertical tanks placed in thecorner housing. Supported by this transverse series and di- 'rectly overthe vertical tanks and longitudinally placed horizontal tanks, twolongi- 'tudinal grates 23 are placed formed of the same number of lon'itudinal buoyant bars 14 as the longitudinal grates at the base, thedifference in the grates being that all the longitudinal bars of thesegrates are of the same length with the exeception of those, registeringwith the apertures in'the food; tanks. i

All of the longitudinal and 'transverse;' series of buoyant bars formingther'aft are suitably bound by bolts 24, and'metallic corners 25 areprovided at the endsof the; raft to protect the extremities of the bars;from injury in launching as well as in the-,3 floating of the raft. Asit is seen from the? drawings and the description, the grated, floor 16becomes a central floor surrounded; by. the housing containing the tanksand di-. vided in the middle by the transverse bars reinforcing theraft, and by this construction of the grated floor space or room 26 isformed for persons to rest in when the raft is launched. The food. tanks18 are provided at both ends with watertight plugs 27 through which thefood is introduced and extracted. It must be remarked that. the samestructure of a raft will be formed of grated walls forming at each sideand end parallelepipeds inmesh with each other and having longitudinalreinforc ng bars forming a grated fijoorf and transverse reinforcingbars reinforcing the structure and dividing the forward passengerinclosure into two equal parts. The raft is also provided on its borderswith a life rope 28 forming loops and each isiprovided with a; float 29.The purpose of this line is to afford the personsm the water to be able{to see the line supported by the floats and grip the same.

When the raft is to be launched from the deck of the ship it will firstslide on the deck on its runners 10 and then overboard into the water,and it is easily seen that due water with the runners down, but if itfalls with the runners up the raft will roject; as much above the waterlevel aswith -the? stated, the horizontal transversetanks' havetheiraxis below the longitudinal horizontal tanks, and in consequencethe center of buoyancy of the device is practically in the center of thedevice, and as the food tanks are accessible from both sides and theraft provided with safe room 26 at both faces, the efficiency of theraft is the same.

Having thus described my invention, I 'claim as new and desire to-secureby Letters Patent 7 4 1. A device of the class described, comprising aplurality of buoyant members arranged in'a plurality of longitudinal andtransverse series forming a frame with a centrally-arrangedpassenger-receiving inclosure, and a continuous series of tank-receivinginclosures at the borders of said frame, one-of said longitudinal seriesforming a central floor in said frame, thereby making saidpassenger-receiving inclosure accessible at both faces of said frame.

2. A- device of the class described, comprising at each side series oflongitudinal buoyant bars and at each end series of trans-'parallelepiped similarly formed and in mesh with the said parallelepipedat the sides, a central floor formed by a series of longitudinal buoyantbars supported by the inner walls of sald parallelepipeds at the end, atransverse series of longitudinal buoyant bars reinforcing the structureand supported by the inner walls of said parallelepipeds at the sides, acentral passenger receiving inclosure at both faces formed by saidcentral floor and said inner walls of said side and end parallelepipeds,a plurality of housings in said parallelepipeds formed by the meshing ofsaid end and sideparallelepipeds and the reinforcing bars, and aplurality of food and air tanks inclosed in said housings and rigidlsupportedin the same.

4. A device oft e class described, comprising at each side aparallelepiped-formed of longitudinal grated walls, and at each end aparallelepiped also formed of transverse grated Walls and meshing "withthe said'walls of said side parallelepiped, vertical housings at eachcorner formed; by'the meshing of said parallelepipeds, transverserunners down, because, as it was above buoyant bars reinforcing andconnecting the said side parallele ipeds and in mesh with the same, andorizontal housin formed in said side and end parallele ipe s bfi themeshing of said side and end par- 5 a elepipeds an said transverse bars.

5. A device of the class described, comrising at each side'.series oflongitudinal uoyant bars, and at each end series of transverse buoyantbars, said longitudinal 10 and transverse series consecutivelsuperposing each other, a plurality of ousmgs ormed at the borders, bysaid superposed transverse horizontal and longitudinal buoyant series,and air tanks contained in each of said housin said side tanks hav- 15ing their axis in a p ane different from said end tanks, wherebythecenter of buoyancy of the device is practically in the center of thedevice.

In testimony whereof I have signed my 20 name to this specification inthe presence of; two subscribin witnesses.

BER EMELIE MATSON. Witnesses: I Y

JOHN GARDNER,

EDWARD J. Kimmy.

